I
am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
‘But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd,
whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep,
and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep”

I might
as well ride this horse while I am on it. My commentary from last week,
Christian Pimps, blew the door
of my email server off. I figured it would, but not in the way that it
did.

The
overwhelming response was heart-wrenching as I read story after story
of the horror some folks have been put through by “local”
churches. The refrain usually took one of two paths as writer’s
spelled out for me their stories. Some were tales of separation from life-long
churches because they had the courage to question the status-quo by addressing
the leadership with many of the issues mentioned in Christian Pimps. Others
were heart-sick over the un-Biblical practice of debt accumulation as
the leadership ignored their cries and continued on with their “church
growth” schemes as the integrity of the Word was diminished in the
slide toward “relationship” evangelism.

To put
it in medical terms, I hit a nerve. It is disheartening to hear from so
many disaffected, disillusioned, wounded, no-longer church goers. Why
have so many Christians dropped out of church? Rebellious sheep I suppose…..

But
at the same time I was encouraged. There are millions of believers who
are no longer part of the “church scene” who are passionately
following hard after Jesus. Christianity operates best when we realize
it is a relationship, not a religion. Many others share my hatred of “religion”
and the box that it puts adherents in to. Where
the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty! And many have found the
freedom of worship outside the stained-glassed fortresses.

Having
said all of that, last week I promised to take on another issue, that
of “the
hirelings” in the pulpits.

Let
me remind you that I am not a theologian; I have never attended seminary,
and do not consider myself an expert on any Biblical issue. But I can
read, and I can think. As I have taken time to do as the Bereans who “searched
the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” I have
found that many things I previously had been taught just simply did not
line-up with Scripture. It was through my own study that I ran across
something that up to now no one has been able to refute to me.
Perhaps you can….I am not afraid of the Truth.

Early
in my walk I heard a pastor use a Scripture that is oft repeated. In fact,
I used it on a number of occasions. It was only by happenstance as I was
reading the Bible one day that something jumped out at me that flew in
the face of everything I had believed. I don’t want to shake your
faith, or take away one of the church’s catch phrases, but ever
since I saw this truth I stopped misusing the verse. Buckle up…let’s
go for a short ride.

As I
said, I am not a Bible teacher, but I can read. Here is the Scripture
that I see so often misapplied. John
10:10“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill,
and to destroy:” Now for years I believed that the “the
thief” mentioned here was the Devil. It is a pet verse of those
who are “under attack” by the enemy. I do believe that the
Devil is a thief, but allow me to propose to you that the Devil is not
“the thief” that Jesus is warning about in this regularly
quoted verse.

No my
friends, the thief is not the Devil, but the “false shepherd”,
the same thief that I referred to last week as “pimps.” Please
take a moment and read John
10:1:16

In the
very first verse Jesus identifies the thief for us. “Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold,
but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.”
(Please keep your browser open to John 10. This will allow me to not use
space writing the Scriptures.) Jesus tells us that the one who enters
by the door is the shepherd (v.2) and that He (Jesus) is the door. (v.9).
The one who enters any other way is a “thief and robber” (v.1)
as clearly identified by Jesus.

He tells
us that the sheep “hear his (true shepherd’s) voice; he calls
them by name, and he LEADS THEM OUT.” (v. 3) (Funny isn’t
it, most pastors today lead folks in.) The true shepherd “goes before
the sheep” (v. 4) as he “leads them out.”

But
Jesus tells us in verse six that the folks to whom He was speaking “understood
not,” and He took more time to further explain. Beginning in verse
seven He tells us that He was “the door” and that “all
that came before him were thieves and robbers.” (There it is again…He
tells us who the thieves and robbers are...and it ain’t the devil.)
The thieves are the false shepherds who will not lead the sheep to Jesus,
“the door” (v. 9) through whom the sheep could be saved. (v.9).
(Get ready…here it comes)

In verse
ten Jesus warns us that the previously identified thief (v.1 and v 7)
has come to steal, kill, and destroy. The thief is not the Devil, but
the false shepherd. (Still not convinced?)

Look
who shows up in verse twelve…the wolf! Doesn’t it make sense
that the wolf is the Devil? We have two different characters here…the
thief and the wolf….the Devil can’t be both. In fact, Jesus
goes a step further to identify the thief for us by calling him a “hireling”
and not the shepherd (v. 12).
It is the “hireling” (false shepherd) who “seeth the
wolf coming” (v. 12) and deserts his post. The hireling flees because
he “careth not for the sheep.” (v. 13), but is only in it
for his own personal gain.
The thief (hireling) sees the wolf (Devil) coming and flees. It is the
hireling who has come to “kill, steal and destroy.”

Some
things never change. Those “hirelings” were the one’s
Jesus saved his greatest criticism for when He ran into them earlier,
(only then He called them Pharisees) when He rebuked them because they
“shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go
in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.”
(Remember, He also accused the hirelings of not being able to lead the
sheep through the door). The Pharisees were the original hirelings. Read
what Jesus said about them and ask yourself if they were any different
from what stands in many of our pulpits today.

John
10 is clear if read with an open mind. Hirelings are Pharisees and the
Pharisees were hirelings….professional “ministers.”
Jesus warned us about both.

How
can we possibly restore righteousness to this nation when we can’t
even get those who stand in the pulpit to honor the Word of God? How can
we expect our elected officials to stand publicly against evil when the
“men of the cloth” are too cowardly to do so?

Jesus’
anger was not directed towards the secular government but towards those
who changed his house
of prayer into a “den of thieves.”(There are those thieves
again) He cleaned the house and today we need to do the same.

Christians
have lost all credibility with the world. For the most part the public
image of Christian leaders is money grubbing, hypocritical, and Republican,
a far cry from the Christ we claim to serve.

America
is in dire need of a revival. It will never happen with the hirelings
currently occupying our pulpits. It is at their feet that we must lay
the killing, stealing, and destroying of the Christian heritage from this
nation. It is time for a reformation.

Instead
of all of this talk about “reclaiming America” perhaps we
should refocus on reclaiming our faith. Has there ever been an institution
with more pathetic leadership than we see today in American Christianity?
Nothing is more debilitating to an army than cowardly leadership.

There
has always been a true elite of God’s leaders. They are the meek
who inherit the earth (Mat. 5:5). They weep and pray in secret, and defy
earth and hell in public. They tremble when faced with danger, but die
in their tracks sooner than turn back. They are like a shepherd defending
his sheep or a mother protecting her young. They sacrifice without grumbling,
give without calculation, suffer without groaning. Their price is above
riches. They are the salt of the earth. For the cause of the kingdom,
we need more of them." (Author unknown.) Do you know many shepherds
like that?

Don’t
be discouraged. The Lord’s Church is thriving and on the advance,
but you will never recognize it if you are focusing on the group of people
gathered in the building down the street. Most of those sheep belong to
a hireling, a false shepherd, and not to the Lord.

It is
the hireling, the false shepherd that has come to steal, and kill, and
destroy.

Coach Dave Daubenmire, founder
and President of Pass The Salt Ministries www.ptsalt.com
and Minutemen United www.minutemenunited.org,
is host of the high octane Pass The Salt radio show heard in Columbus,
Ohio.

In 1999 Coach Daubenmire was sued by the ACLU
for praying with his teams while coaching high school in Ohio. He now
spends his energy fighting for Christian principles in the public domain.

America
is in dire need of a revival. It will never happen with the hirelings
currently occupying our pulpits. It is at their feet that we must lay
the killing, stealing, and destroying of the Christian heritage from this
nation. It is time for a reformation.